Video: The eerie yet riveting Mossad assassination clip

posted at 4:25 pm on February 17, 2010 by Allahpundit

The first vid will give you the basics but I recommend watching at least a few minutes of the much longer second one to get a feel for how elaborate this operation was. The target: Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas military honcho at the top of Mossad’s hit list. The team, allegedly: 11 Mossad operatives, a mind-blowing number not only in terms of the coordination involved but the risk that one of them would be found out and the whole squad would be pinched. The Times of London picks up the story:

Stepping out of the lift, al-Mabhouh was escorted to room 230 by a member of staff at the Al Bustan Rotana hotel, near Dubai airport. Unnoticed, the taller man followed him down the corridor, clocking his room number and that of the room opposite, 237. In the hours that followed, room 237 became the staging post for the audacious murder of the senior Hamas official.

Within an hour of al-Mabhouh checking in his killers had established that room 237 was unoccupied and moved in across the hall. By that evening seven of the team were gathered in the room, waiting for their opportunity…

Security footage of the killers’ movements during the afternoon, released by police in Dubai yesterday, underlines the professionalism of the operation. The group switched hotels several times and wore disguises including false beards and wigs, while surveillance teams rotated in pairs through the hotel lobby, never hanging around for too long and paying for everything in cash…

Throughout the operation, none of the suspects made a direct call to any another. However, Dubai police traced a high volume of calls and text messages between three phones carried by the assassins and four numbers in Austria where a command centre had apparently been established.

Follow the link for details of the hit. One bizarre footnote to all this: Evidently the passports used by the assassins match those of Israeli citizens who are unconnected to the operation. Essentially, Mossad stole their identities and now the innocents are left to deal with the consequences.

Exit question: How on earth did Dubai intelligence put all these pieces together so quickly?

Breaking on Hot Air

Blowback

Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.

Whoever it is that perpetrated this act, well done. Can we get more of this and faster please? Any Islamic thug who blows up kids and kidnaps, tortures and kills soldiers while hiding behind the skirts of his women, deserves Death in a swift and merciless fashion.

No sympathy for the dead guy here. Admiration for the professionalism and self preservation of the perpetrators is the order of the day.

What a nice way to start the day, a good cup of coffee and me seeing the ballet that took place which resulted in one less evil bit of slime in the world.

And good work Dubai after the fact. That was a very nice bit of editing and collection of vids and intel. As in the posting, you have to wonder how they put it all together and released it so quickly. Almost goes to indicate they were given some advance by Israel and some eager beaver wanting to show Dubai Intell was indeed good, overplayed their hand.

How on earth did Dubai intelligence put all these pieces together so quickly?

They probably had al-Mabhouh under surveillence themselves, and probably captured at least some of the Mossad team on camera at some point or other. After that it was a simple matter of collecting cell traffic and message logs, and normal police work.

That and a lack of a pesky Fourth Amendment to get in the way of demanding records and logs.

Looks like it’s Mossad 1, Dubai/Hamas 0! I wouldn’t be surprised if everyone on tape is a decoy and there are no vids of the real hit squad.

Mini-14 on February 17, 2010 at 5:57 PM

It does seem odd that the team let themselves be caught on camera so frequently, since that would compromise their ability to conduct future operations. But on the other hand, the best way to not arouse suspicion is not to act suspiciously.

Some reports suggest that the use of Israeli passports (even if fake) indicates that the operation was not a Mossad one, but possibly a rival Palestinian group intending to implicate Israel.

Wow! How did they know what hotel the guy was going to check into? He traveled under a false name and wasn’t there yet.

They were set up at all those hotels because they weren’t sure initially, but they still knew before he got there. They also had to have a variety of plans and equipment for each hotel layout and technology. This is so impressive.

Thank You, Mossad! On a different note: Did anyone else see on MSNBC Morning Joe that the news segment showed the pictures of the “Mossad agents”, and most dispicably, the cover of a USA Passport !!!! I’m not making this up !!! Why was the cover a USA Passport photoshopped like this ???

If it was an Israeli hit, then that’s just awesomesauce. Unfortunately, the international community may try to use this incident against Israel. Barack Obama, of course, in all likelihood will not come to their defense.